


The Tale of a Storm Cloud

by Gothams_Only_Wolf



Series: The Care and Handling of Silver Chickabos [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Bedtime Stories, Chikabos verse, Gen, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Remnants are Scared of Lightning, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 12:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6955963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gothams_Only_Wolf/pseuds/Gothams_Only_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Then what is that?" </p><p>"Not an explosion." </p><p>Companion piece to Microwave Hijinks</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale of a Storm Cloud

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to A for commenting on Microwave Hijinks, I got bitten by the Cloud Muse again. More unrepentant floof! 
> 
> Enjoy~

* * *

Cloud headed home to find the Remnants squished under one bed, three sets of green eyes peering out at him with fear painted starkly across their faces. He sighed at the reminder that the last loud noises they'd heard were _explosions_ they'd been _**caught in**_. So Cloud set about removing all the pillows and all the thick blankets (the Remnants hated the cold and Cloud agreed) he could find. 

Marlene helped, gathering the tall chairs from the living room and pulling the blankets over them like a cave. 

"C'mon, this is better and you're not all on top of one another." Cloud encouraged as he unbuckled his pauldron and kicked off his boots at the edge of the blanket fort. Loz darted across first and tucked himself against Cloud's side, green kitten eyes glowing like Cloud's in the gloom. The thunder crashed overhead, followed by lightning. Cloud hummed softly as he rubbed Loz's back. 

"Make it go away!" Yazoo was next, yowling as he skidded into Cloud's other side. 

"I can't. It's nature." he replied carefully. 

"Then what is that?" Yazoo whined as he pressed close, hand coming over Cloud's stomach to twine with Loz's. 

"Not an explosion." 

Kadaj, stubborn little bastard, refused to come out until the third resounding crash of thunder. He tucked himself along Cloud's front, face buried in Cloud's shoulder as he shivered. Loz and Yazoo curled around Cloud and Kadaj as they huddled together in the dark. 

"Story," Loz blurted when the tension was too much for the oldest Remnant. "You promised to tell us a story when you got b-back." 

Cloud hummed thoughtfully as he rubbed circles into the Remnant's backs and pressed his chin against the smallest Remnant. 

"So I did," he responded as he let his Materia glow enough to light the fort. "How about the tale of a little storm cloud that my Ma told me, hmm?" 

"Yes!" Kadaj demanded and then whined out a quiet plea along with it. "... Please." 

"Alright." Cloud clicked his tongue as he pulled at his memories of Ma, looking for the story. "See, there's different types of clouds. The big ones stay up, up, high in the sky. The feather clouds stray even higher, almost kissing the stars as they do it. There's curly clouds, wispy clouds and big, strong clouds that can't be blown by the wind. But... The storm cloud is lonely. He doesn't reach too high and he's so close he can almost touch the ground." 

"Why was he lonely?" Loz tugged at Cloud's shirt, looking for all the Planet like a child too big for his body. Cloud supposed he was considering the information the Remnants had told him; they'd grown up into their current bodies with too little time for their minds to catch up. 

"The other clouds couldn't reach him so they made fun of him. They laughed and pointed (as much as clouds do, anyway), dropped water all over the poor cloud. So he grew darker and darker, all the water soaked up by his fluffiness. And one day, when it became too much, he cried." 

"But crying's for the _weak_." Yazoo muttered from where he was practically plastered to Cloud's left side. 

"No, it isn't. I told my Ma that and she said that even the strongest people cry. I do. Am I weak?" Cloud posited the question in such a way that the Remnants took to discussing it with their hands fluttering. "Well?" 

"It's okay to cry, right?" Loz finally asked for all three of them. 

"Of course. Now, the little storm cloud cried and cried and—Wouldn't you know it—the ground responded. She sent up light the only way she knew how, right on the storm cloud. 

'You're not alone.' She said. 

'What would you know about being alone?' The little storm cloud yelled back with a terrific boom. That's all thunder is, you know, yelling. 

'For all that I am covered in grass and life, I cannot speak to them.' She replied with another flash of light.

'Oh.' Said the storm cloud. 'Can you make one?' 

'All I have is the earth and my light.' The ground sighed. 

'Try anyway.' 

And so the ground made figures, fine and yet strong, delicate and yet hard. The little storm cloud cried over them and they traded the light back and forth, back and forth. The figures breathed! They stood shaking away the earth that had made them and thanked both the little storm cloud and the ground. The ground was estatic. She could talk to them! But... She wasn't about to forget the cloud that had helped her make them. 

She asked that the storm cloud talk with her still, so that he wouldn't ever be alone again. So you see, the storm cloud's just fulfilling his promise to the ground."

"The Cetra, right?" Kadaj asked quietly. "The one _**He**_ killed was her last one." 

"She was," Cloud agreed as he laid back with all three piled on top of him. "But the Planet talks to me and to Vincent, so all is not lost." 

"The red-eyed one... He doesn't like us very much." Yazoo asserted as he touched foreheads with Kadaj on Cloud's shoulder. 

"He's conflicted. You look a lot like Sephiroth and it's come to light recently that Sephiroth may have been his child." Cloud sighed as they shifted the pile towards the entrance to the blanket fort. "It's... not easy to come to term with the fact that he may have helped kill his only link to the woman he loved." 

"Oh." 

The silence that descended was comfortable and Cloud fell asleep under the weight of three Remnants who slept like kittens through the rest of the storm.

* * *

Cloud woke up to the smell of Marlene's pancakes. He cracked open an eye to see all three Remnants curled in his grip and kneading at him like griffin cubs in their sleep.

"Morning, Spikey." Barret was filming on his PHS, eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned. 

"Barret... That better not be going to Reeve." Cloud chided as the Remnants snuffled. 

"Nah. Just to Vincent and Cid." Barret sat on Loz's bed as he sent the video, turning the screen to let Cloud see. 

"Since when does Cid like that sort of thing?" Color Cloud surprised; he thought Cid hadn't much cared for the Remnants. 

"Since he dropped by on the _Shera_ and they followed him like a clumsy pile o' kittens." 

"That'd do it." 

"Breakfast?" Barret asked as he knelt to give Cloud a soft kiss. 

"Yeah. Lemme extract myself from the pile." Cloud drawled as he carefully moved not to wake up the Remnants. "Hey." 

"Hey yourself, Spikey." Barret laced his fingers with Cloud's as they left the Remnants to sleep the sleep of microwave destroyers.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment, complain, ect.


End file.
